To forget you would be mercy

I want to outrun the ghost of you—
but it’s stitched into my shadow.

My life feels paused,
like a film reel left whirring with no picture,
a half-spoken sentence caught in my throat.

Sleep has been cursed by forgetfulness,
yet all it delivers
are sharp fragments of you:
the sting of your presence,
the weight of your absence,
the sound of forever we spoke of
but never built.

You were summer heat on skin,
and winter frost in my lungs.
We carved a paradise
on borrowed time—
then watched it drown beneath the ice.

Sometimes I wish I could misplace my name,
because you once spoke it like a secret—
soft, sacred.
Now it echoes too loud in my chest.

I wish I could forget the reflection
that still carries your fingertips.
This soul—so stupid, so open—
the one you once admired
for how easily it bloomed
under your gaze.

I tried to burn every trace of us,
but memory is a wildfire—
and it only spreads
when you try to suffocate it.

So instead,
I beg to forget the version of me
that only existed with you.
Because no one else
can hold those memories.
They are locked in a room
you no longer live in.

You’re chasing your dreams now,
and I hope they hold you better than I ever could.

But how tragic—
that you were mine
and I was only a chapter
in your prelude.

I tell myself
it’s time to bury this love.
But I’m afraid I’m building
a tomb
for someone who never asked to be remembered.

You live beneath my skin now—
a haunting I can’t evict.

None of these new men
wear your voice,
or your storm,
or your quiet ways of lifting my world
without words.

And it’s not their fault,
but still—
I cannot forgive them
for simply
not being
you.

It’s cruel.
But it’s true.

And that’s the saddest part of all.